The League of Teaching.

— Several of our correspondents have been surprised that we have not yet spoken of the association designated under the title of League of Teaching. n By its progressive character, this progress seems to them to deserve the sympathies of Spiritism; nevertheless, before taking part in it, they would like to have our opinion. Thanking them for this new testimony of confidence, we shall repeat what we have told them many times, namely: that we have never had the pretension of curtailing anyone's liberty, nor of imposing our ideas on whomsoever it may be, nor of regarding them as having to make law. By keeping silent, we wished not to prejudge the question and to leave to each one the most complete liberty. As for the reason for our personal abstention, we have no reason to keep silent about it and, since they wish to know it, we shall say it frankly. Our sympathy, like that of all Spiritists, is naturally guaranteed to all progressive ideas, to all institutions that tend to propagate them; but it is still necessary that such sympathy have a determined object. Now, up to the present the League of Teaching offers us nothing but a title, seductive it is true, but no defined program, no plan laid out, no precise objective. This title even has the disadvantage of being so elastic that it could lend itself to combinations very divergent in their tendencies and in their results. Each one can understand it as he wishes and, no doubt, imagine, in anticipation, a plan in accordance with his manner of seeing; it could then happen that, when it was in execution, the thing did not correspond to the idea that certain persons had formed. Hence the inevitable defections. But, they say, nothing is risked, since it is the subscribers themselves who will regulate the use of the funds. – All the more reason for them not to come to an understanding and, in this conflict of opinions and of diverse views, there will necessarily be disappointments.

On the contrary, with a well-defined objective, a clearly traced plan, one knows what one is committing oneself to, or, at least, whether one is adhering to something practicable or to a utopia; one can appreciate the sincerity of the intention, the value of the idea, the more or less happy combination of the mechanisms, the guarantees of stability, and calculate the chances of success or of failure. Now, in this case, this appreciation is not possible, because the fundamental idea is surrounded with mysteries and must be accepted on one's word as good. We even want to believe it perfect, we sincerely desire it, and when the good that is to come out of it is demonstrated to us and, above all, when we see its practical side, we shall applaud it with all our heart; but, before giving our adherence to anything whatever, we want to do it with knowledge of the cause; we have to see very clearly in all that we do and to know where we set our foot. In the state of things, not having the elements necessary to praise or to blame, we reserve our judgment. This manner of seeing is entirely personal and must not lead astray those who judge themselves sufficiently enlightened.

[Review of April.]

The League of Teaching.

(2nd Article. See the preceding number.)

Apropos of the article that we published on the league of teaching, we received from Mr. Macé, its founder, the following letter, which we judged it a duty to publish. If we set forth the motives on which we based the restrictive opinion that we issued, it is wholly equitable to confront them with the author's explanations.

Beblenheim, March 5, 1867.

Sir, Mr. Ed. Vauchez communicates to me what you said of the league of teaching in the Spiritist Review, and I take the liberty of addressing to you, not a reply to be published in your Review, but some personal explanations about the objective that I pursue, and the plan that I have traced. I would be pleased if they could dispel the scruples that hold you back and attach you to a project that does not have, at least in my mind, the void that you saw in it.

It is a matter of grouping, in each locality, all those who feel ready to perform an act of citizenship, contributing personally to the development of public instruction around them. Each group will necessarily have to make its program, for the measure of its action is necessarily determined by its means of action. In this I found it impossible to specify anything; but the nature of this action, the capital point, I specified it in the clearest and most distinct manner: To have people instructed purely and simply, outside of all preoccupation of sect and of party. There is a first uniform article, inscribed beforehand at the top of all the prospectuses; there will be its moral unity. Every circle that comes to infringe it will leave the league by full right. You are, I could not doubt it, too loyal not to agree that there will not be, after this, room for any disappointment, when one comes to execution. Therein only those would be disappointed who had entered the league with the secret hope of making it serve the triumph of a particular opinion: they are forewarned.

As for the intentions that the author of the project himself might have, and the confidence that it is fitting to grant him, allow me to stand by the answer that I once already gave to a suspicion issued in the Annals of Labor, of which I beg you to take cognizance. It is addressed to a doubt regarding my liberal tendencies; it can also be addressed to the doubts that might be raised in other minds about the loyalty of my declaration of neutrality.

I dare hope, sir, that these explanations will appear to you sufficiently clear to modify your first impression and that you will judge it fitting, if such be the case, to say it to your readers. Every good citizen owes the support of his personal influence to what he recognizes as useful, and I feel myself so convinced of the usefulness of our project of the League, that it seems to me impossible that it could escape a mind as experienced as yours.

Receive, sir, my most cordial and fraternal salutations.

Jean Macé.

To this letter Mr. Macé saw fit to add the number of the Annales du travail, in which is found the answer mentioned above, and which we reproduce in full.

Beblenheim, January 4, 1867.

Mr. Editor, The objection that you made relative to a possible modification of my liberal ideas and, in consequence, to the danger, also possible, of a bad direction given to the teaching of the League, such objection seems to me regrettable, and I beg your permission to respond to those who made it to you, not for what concerns me – I judge it useless – but for the honor of my idea, which they have not understood. The League teaches nothing and will have no direction to give. It is, then, superfluous to worry from now on about the more or less liberal opinions of him who seeks to found it.

I make an appeal to all those who take seriously the development of instruction in their country and who wish to work at it, whether for others, by teaching, or for themselves, by learning. I invite them to associate at all points of the territory; to perform an act of citizenship, combating ignorance, both with their purse and with their person, which is worth still more; to pursue man by man, the bad fathers, who do not send their children to school; to shame the comrades who know neither how to read nor how to write; to remind them that there is always time; to put the book and the pen in their hand, if need be, improvising themselves as teachers, each one of that which he knows; to create courses and libraries, for the benefit of the ignorant who wish to cease being so; finally, to form throughout all of France a single bundle so as to lend mutual aid against the enemy influences – there are some, unfortunately, of an elevation considered dangerous, according to the intellectual level of the people. If one succeeds in doing all this, pray, in what disquieting sense could this movement be directed, by whomsoever it might be? Let there be organized, for example, in Paris, among workers, Societies of intellectual culture, like those that exist by the hundreds in the cities of Germany, and of which Mr. Edouard Pfeiffer, president of the Association of Popular Instruction of Württemberg, explained the functioning in such an interesting manner in the number of the Coopération of last September 30; let there be, in the faubourg Saint-Antoine, in the quarter of the Temple, in Montmartre, in Batignolles; groups of workers who have entered the League gather together to give themselves, jointly, on certain days, soirées of instruction with teachers of good will, or even paid ones, why not? – the English and German workers do not refuse this luxury – I would much like to know what the doctrines of a teacher of young ladies who gives his classes in Beblenheim, and who has not the least desire to change pupils, will come there to do. – Will these people not be in their own home? Will they need to ask my leave? Not that I forbid myself to have a doctrine in the matter of popular teaching. I certainly have one; without this I would not allow myself to set myself up, as my own chief, at the head of a movement such as this. Here it is just as I have just formulated it in the Yearbook of the Association of 1867. It is the very negation of all direction "in such a sense rather than another," to make use of the expression of those who are not entirely sure of me, and I declare myself ready to put at their service all the personal authority that I may have – I am not afraid to speak of this because I am conscious of having earned it legitimately:

"To preach to the ignorant man in one sense or another, gains nothing and does not make him advance. He remains afterward at the mercy of contrary preachings, knowing no more of them than he knew before. Let him learn what those who preach to him know – that is another matter; he will be in a state to preach, and those who feared that he himself might be a bad preacher can assure themselves of it beforehand. Instruction does not have two manners of acting upon those who possess it. If they find themselves well off by it on their own account, why would it not render the same service to others?"

If your correspondents "from outside" know a more liberal manner of understanding the question of popular teaching, let them have the kindness to teach it to me. I know none.

Jean Macé.

P.S. – You ask that I answer a question that was put to you about the future destination of sums subscribed for the League.

The subscription opened at present is destined to cover the expenses of propaganda of the project. I shall publish in each bulletin, as I have just done in the first, the balance of receipts and of expenses and I shall render my accounts, with supporting documents, to the commission that is named for such purpose, at the first general assembly.

When the league is constituted, the use of the annual dues will have to be determined – at least that is my opinion – within the adhering groups that are formed. Each group would fix the part that would suit it in the general fund of propaganda of the work, into which would equally go the dues of the adherents who did not judge it fitting to engage themselves in a special group.

Reflections on the preceding letters.

Perhaps this is due to the lack of perspicacity of our intelligence, but we confess with all humility to being no more enlightened than before; we shall even say that the above explanations come to confirm our opinion. We had been told that the author of the project had a well-defined program, but that he was reserving himself to make it known when the adhesions were sufficient. This manner of proceeding seemed to us neither logical nor practical, since, rationally, one cannot adhere to that which one does not know. Now, the letter that Mr. Macé had the kindness to write us, gives us absolutely no reason to understand that such is the case; on the contrary, it says: "Each group will necessarily have to make its own program," which signifies that the author does not have one that is personal to him. From this it results that if there are a thousand groups, there can be a thousand programs; it is the door opened to the anarchy of systems. It is true that he adds that the capital point is specified in the clearest and most distinct manner by the indication of the objective, which is "to have people instructed purely and simply, outside of any preoccupation of sect and of party." The objective is laudable, no doubt, but in it we see nothing but good intention and not the indispensable precision of practical things.

"Every circle – he adds – that came to infringe it, would leave the League by full right." Here is the threatening measure. Well then! these circles will be free to leave the League, and to form others alongside it, without judging that they have demeaned themselves in anything whatever. Here, then, is the principal League broken from the start, for lack of unity of views and of the whole. The indicated objective is so general that it lends itself to a mistake of very contradictory applications, and that each one, interpreting it according to his personal opinions, will judge himself to be right. Besides, where is the authority that can legally pronounce this exclusion? It does not exist. There is no regulating center qualified to appreciate or to control the individual programs that depart from the general plan. Each group having its own authority and its center of action, it is the sole judge of what it does. In such conditions we believe an understanding to be impossible. Up to here we see in this project only a general idea. Now, an idea is not a program. A program is a traced line, from which no one can knowingly depart, a plan decided in the most minute details, and which leaves nothing to the arbitrary, where all the difficulties of execution are foreseen and where the ways and means are indicated. The best program is the one that gives the least chance to improvisation.

"It was even impossible for me to specify anything – says the author – because the measure of action of each group will necessarily be determined by its means of action." – In other terms, by the material resources that it will be able to dispose of. But this is not a reason. Every day plans are made, projects are elaborated subordinated to the eventual means of execution. It is only by seeing a plan that the public decides to associate itself, according as it understands its usefulness and sees in it elements of success.

What, before all, it would have been necessary to do, was to indicate with precision the gaps in teaching that one proposed to fill, the needs that one wished to provide for; to say: whether one intended to favor gratuity of teaching, by paying or indemnifying male or female teachers; to found schools where there are none; to make up for the insufficiency of instruction material in schools too poor to provide themselves with it; to furnish books to the children who cannot buy them; to institute prizes of encouragement for the pupils and teachers; to create courses for adults; to pay men of talent to go, as missionaries, to give instructive lectures in the countryside and to destroy superstitious ideas with the aid of Science; to define the objective and the spirit of these courses and these lectures, etc., these and other things. Only then would the objective have been clearly specified. Afterward they could say: "To attain it, material resources are needed." Then let us appeal to the men of good will, to the friends of progress, to those who sympathize with our ideas; let them form committees by Departments, quarters, cantons or communes, charged with collecting subscriptions. There will be no general and central treasury; each committee will have its own, the use of which it will direct according to the traced program, in proportion to the resources that it will be able to dispose of; if it collects much, it will do much; if it collects little it will do less. But there will be a directing committee, charged with centralizing the information, transmitting the notices and the necessary instructions, resolving the difficulties that may arise, imprinting upon the whole a stamp of unity, without which the league would be a vain word. A league is understood as an association of individuals marching by common accord and in solidarity toward the realization of a determined objective. Now, from the instant that each one can understand the objective in his own manner, and act as he wishes, there is no longer either league or association. Here it is not merely a matter of a goal to attain. From the instant that its realization rests on capital to be collected by means of subscriptions, there is a financial combination; the economic part of the project cannot be left to the caprice of individuals, nor to the whim of events, under penalty of being imperiled; it calls for a prior, serious elaboration, a plan conceived with foresight in the anticipation of all eventualities.

An essential point of which they seem not to have thought, is this: The end that they propose being permanent, and not temporary, as when it is a matter of a misfortune to relieve, or of a monument to erect, it requires permanent resources. Experience proves that one must never count on regular and perpetual voluntary subscriptions; thus, if one operated directly with the product of the subscriptions, soon that product would be absorbed. If one wishes the operation not to be interrupted at its very source, it is necessary to constitute a revenue so as not to live off its capital; consequently, to capitalize the subscriptions in the most secure and productive manner. How? with what guarantee and under what control? This is what every project, which is based on a movement of capital, must foresee before all, and determine before collecting anything, as it must equally determine the use and the distribution of the funds collected in advance, in the case in which, for any cause whatever, it were not continued. By its nature, the project entails an economic part all the more important in that it is on it that its future depends, and here it is completely lacking. Let us suppose that before the establishment of the insurance companies, a man had said: "Fires make daily devastations; I have thought that if we associated ourselves and contributed our dues we could mitigate the effects of the scourge. How? I am ignorant of it. First I shall make my subscription, then we shall decide. You yourselves will seek the means that best suits you and will endeavor to come to an understanding." No doubt the idea would have smiled upon many; but when they had set themselves to the work, with how many practical difficulties would they not have collided, for not having had a previously elaborated base! It seems to us that here the case is more or less the same. The letter published in the Annals of Labor and referred to above, does not elucidate the question any further; it confirms that the plan and the execution of the project are left to the discretion and to the initiative of the subscribers. Now, when the initiative is left to all, no one takes it. Besides, if men have enough reasoning to appreciate whether what is offered to them is good or bad, not all are apt to elaborate an idea, above all when it embraces a field as vast as this. This elaboration is the indispensable complement of the primitive idea. A league is an organized body, which must have a regulation and statutes, in order to march together, if it wishes to arrive at a result. If Mr. Macé had established statutes, even provisional ones, on the condition of submitting them later to the approval of the subscribers, who could modify them freely, as is customary in all associations, he would have given a body to the League, a point of connection, whereas it has neither the one nor the other. We even say that it has no flag, since it is said in the aforementioned letter: The league will teach nothing and will have no direction to give; it is, then, superfluous to worry from now on about the more or less liberal opinions of him who seeks to found it. We would conceive this reasoning if it were a matter of an industrial operation; but in a question as delicate as teaching, which is regarded under points of view so controverted, which touches the gravest interests of the social order, we do not understand that one can make abstraction of the opinion of him who, by title of founder, ought to be the soul of the enterprise. Such an assertion is a regrettable error. From the void that reigns in the economy [organization] of the project, it results that, in subscribing to it, no one knows to what, nor for what he is committing himself, for he does not know what direction the group of which he forms part will take; that there will even be found subscribers who will form part of no group. The organization of these groups is not even determined; their circumscriptions, their attributions, their sphere of activity, all is left in the unknown. No one is qualified to convene them; contrary to what is practiced in similar cases, no committee of oversight is instituted to regulate and control the use of the funds collected in advance and which serve to pay the expenses of propaganda of the idea. Since there are general expenses paid with the funds of the subscribers, it would be necessary that these latter know in what they consist. The author wants to leave them all liberty of action to organize themselves as they see fit; he wants to be only the promoter of the idea. So be it. And far from us the thought of raising against his person the least suspicion of distrust; but we say that for the regular progress of an operation of this kind and to guarantee its success, there are indispensable preliminary measures, which were totally neglected, which we see with regret, in the very interest of the cause. If it be intentionally, we judge the thought ill-founded; if it be from forgetfulness, it is lamentable. We have no authority to give any counsel on this question, but here is how one generally proceeds in similar cases. When the author of a project that requires an appeal to public confidence does not want to assume alone the responsibility of execution and, also with the aim of surrounding himself with more lights, preliminarily gathers around himself a certain number of persons whose names are a recommendation, who associate themselves with his idea and elaborate it with him. These persons constitute the first committee, whether consultative or cooperative, provisional until the definitive constitution of the operation and the nomination, by the interested parties, of a permanent supervisory council. Such a committee is for these latter a guarantee, by the control that it exercises over the first operations, of which it is charged to render account, as well as of the first expenses. Moreover, it is a support and a division of responsibility for the founder. The latter, speaking in his own name, and propped up by the counsel of several, draws from this collective authority a moral force always more preponderant over the opinion of the masses than the authority of one alone. If they had proceeded thus with the League of Teaching, and if the project had been presented in the usual forms and in more practical conditions, no doubt the adherents would have been more numerous. But such as it stands, in our opinion it leaves many undecided. Although the project is given over to publicity and, consequently, to the free examination of each one, we would not have spoken of it if, in a certain way, we had not been constrained by the requests that were addressed to us. In principle, on things to which, from our point of view, we cannot give entire approval, we prefer to keep silent, in order not to bring any hindrance to it. Since they asked us for new explanations apropos of our last article, we judged it necessary to give the grounds for our manner of seeing with greater precision. But, once again, we only give our opinion, which commits no one. We would be happy if we were the only one of our opinion, and if the event came to prove that we are mistaken. We associate ourselves with all our heart with the mother idea, but not with its mode of execution. [Review of August 1867.]

VARIETIES.

The League of Teaching.

One reads in the Siècle of July 10, 1867:

"The prefecture of Metz has just authorized a session of the association founded by Jean Macé, under the name of "Circle of Metz of the League of Teaching."

"In this regard, one reads in the newspaper Moselle:

"The directing commission, elected, of the circle has entered into activity and has decided to begin its labors by the founding of a popular library, on the model of those that render such great services in Alsace.

"For this work, the circle of Metz calls for the assistance of all and solicits the adhesion of whomsoever takes an interest in the development of instruction and of education in our city. These adhesions, accompanied by a contribution, the amount and mode of payment of which are optional, as well as the offerings of books, will be received by any one of the members of the commission."

Just as we said, in speaking of the League of Teaching (Review of March and April 1867), our sympathies are won by all progressive ideas. In this project we criticize nothing but the mode of execution. Thus, we shall feel happy to see practical applications of this beautiful idea.

[Review of July 1869.]

VARIETIES.

The League of Teaching.

Official Constitution of the Parisian Group.

On June 19, Saturday, we attended the first general assembly held by the Parisian Circle of the League of Teaching, in the conference hall of the Boulevard des Capucines, under the presidency of Mr. Jean Macé.

This meeting had for its special object to give an official constitution to the Parisian group, and to render account of the labors accomplished since its foundation. – As Mr. Allan Kardec said, speaking of the League of Teaching (Spiritist Review of March, April and August 1867) – our sympathies are won by all progressive ideas, by all attempts that have for their object the raising of the intellectual level. We are, then, pleased to have been able to ascertain the practical results of this beautiful institution, regretting keenly that the abundance of matters obliges us to postpone to a coming number the analysis of the constitution adopted in the session that we had the honor of attending. [Review of September 1869.]

VARIETIES.

The League of Teaching.

Official Constitution of the Parisian Group.

(2nd article. – See the Review of July 1869.)

In one of the last numbers of the Review we judged it fitting to announce to our readers the immediate and definitive constitution of the Parisian Group of the League of Teaching. Today we feel happy to make known the program of these devoted men, who wish to consecrate themselves to the development of instruction, above all among the rural populations. We applaud their generous attempt and we make vows that it may be crowned with prompt and complete success.

We could not better testify our sympathy for the labors of the League, than by reproducing the following extracts from the latest circulars published by the Parisian Circle. We shall let our readers appreciate the methodical and practical spirit that presided over the drafting of this program.

"A Society has been created in Paris, under the title of Parisian Circle of the League of Teaching, with the object of propagating instruction. It is mainly to the rural populations that it addresses itself. It provokes and stimulates individual initiative for the founding of schools, free courses, public lectures and popular libraries; it occupies itself only with disseminating the most elementary and most general notions, not permitting itself to enter into political or religious discussions. It is hoped that the League, which already counts in France important and multiple Circles, will see the number of its adepts grow daily, and that one will be able to find, in Paris itself, a center of teaching. "Respecting the freely expressed will of any founding group whatever, the Parisian Circle offers its disinterested assistance; it aspires to put in communication the extreme points of the country; it answers questions, aids the individualities and abstains from all pressure.

"The Parisian Circle places itself gratuitously at the disposal of those who decide to organize a school, a scientific apparatus, and guides them in the choice of the best instruments, whether maps, globes, apparatus of physics, etc. To those who wish to endow their commune with a library, the Parisian Circle can offer the catalogs of the French and foreign publishers, and give its counsels, should they be called for, for the formation of special catalogs destined for the use of readers, whether they belong to an industrial population or to an agricultural population. To this it will add its donations in money, as far as its resources permit.

"The Circle will publish a bulletin, as soon as it is in a condition to do so, to render account of the results obtained.

"A work of propaganda and of fraternity, the Circle seeks the light with a view to the general interest. It solicits, then, the expression of the collective intellectual needs; it will endeavor to provide for it in the measure of its resources…

"The Parisian Circle of the League of Teaching, founded in 1866, has just constituted itself definitively. It counts today 450 adherents who have subscribed an annual sum of 2,300 francs." n [A. DESLIENS.]

[1] [The League of Teaching is a confederation of French associations of public and secular education. About 30 thousand associations are affiliated to it.]

[2] The subscriptions, which cannot be inferior to one franc, are received at the seat of the League, at the home of Mr. E. Vauchez, 53, rue Vivienne.